Chapter Two
TREY
Ihated to admit it, but Marty O’Brien was right.
He was more often than not when it came to people—I just hated to admit it because he never got there in any sensible way.
He took wild and crazy leaps of logic that never should have worked and somehow managed to land on the right answer.
It was as impressive as it was infuriating.
And when it came to something being up with Scout, Marty was one hundred percent correct.
The guy who still couldn’t remember to put toilet paper in all the bathrooms when it was his turn on the chore chart was some sort of savant boyfriend whisperer when it came to the fact that something was wrong with Scout.
Infuriating, see?
By Wednesday night, most of the brothers had cleared out for the holiday.
It was mostly just the chapter executive left—and Marty, who wasn’t a part of the chapter executive but still turned up to meetings with snacks when he remembered.
There were a few other brothers still hanging around too, because of a mix-up with flight or travel plans, but everyone would be gone by Friday at the latest, and then the house would be locked up for the break, quiet and empty.
It was already starting to feel more like a museum than a fraternity house with most of the guys gone.
It was peaceful in a way it never usually was with thirty guys living here.
The house was silent and dignified. It was easier to notice the intricate molding, the chandelier, and the brass fixtures when there wasn’t an impromptu conga line dancing through the middle of a kegger, was what I was saying.
Not that we had those often, but it wasn’t entirely without precedent.
“Chapter meeting?” I asked, knocking my knuckles on the jamb of the living room door to get everyone’s attention.
Casey groaned. “Seriously, Trey?”
“Yes, seriously,” I said. “It’ll be twenty minutes, and we need to get this done.”
Casey peeled himself reluctantly off the couch. “Marty, are you bringing snacks?”
Marty lifted his head off Dalton’s lap. “Can Dalton come?”
“Is Dalton a member of the Alpha Tau chapter executive?” I asked.
It was rhetorical, but Marty answered anyway.
“Um, no?”
“Correct.”
It was like herding cats getting everyone into the office, but eventually we were all in there. Archer, my vice president. Casey, the social chair and pledge master. Knox, the secretary. Connor, the house manager. And Scout, the treasurer.
“Okay,” I said, sitting down behind the desk while the guys crowded onto the couch and the couple of chairs in the office. Scout pulled up a chair beside my desk and opened his laptop. I smiled at him and said to the guys, “It’s gonna be a quick one, don’t worry. Casey?”
“Yes, prez?”
“We’re not doing that,” I said, although it didn’t annoy me as much as I pretended. “Any issues last semester?”
“Nah, prez,” he said with a grin. “All our newbies have settled in great, and the social calendar for the rest of the academic year is already set. Oh, the Zetas want to do another joint charity thing next year, though. Something about a kissing booth for Valentine’s Day?
I mean, that could be fun, but also, isn’t that how you get mono? ”
“If Dalton was here, he could answer that,” Marty said. How the hell had he gotten in here? He hadn’t even brought snacks. “I’ll ask him.”
“Okay,” I said, and Archer made a note. “Scout, how are we financially?”
“All dues paid and nothing outstanding,” he said. “Our insurance has gone up, but we can still cover it without increasing our fees. I’ll send out the usual begging letter to the alumni in the new year for chapter funds.” He tapped his keyboard. “I’ve sent you our latest bank statements.”
“Does anyone have anything else to raise?” I asked, and the guys shook their heads. We rarely had issues to raise in the chapter meetings because we raised them, and dealt with them, as they happened. “Okay, so let’s talk about the chores chart.”
“Is this about the toilet paper again?” Marty asked.
Casey elbowed him.
“No, I just want to make sure that everyone is pulling their weight,” I said.
Before I was chapter president, I was house manager, and old habits died hard.
Also, with thirty guys in the house, you had to stay on top of shit.
I loved my brothers, but take your eyes off them for two seconds and they’d be happily rolling in the mud with pigs.
And in Marty’s case, I wasn’t sure that was a metaphor.
“I’m not aware of any problems,” Connor said. “Everything’s running great, and I haven’t heard any complaints.” His forehead creased. “Everything is running great, right?”
“I think so,” I said. “I’m just checking in.”
Connor gave me a faintly suspicious look, and I hoped he didn’t think I was overstepping on the house management stuff. Like I said, old habits died hard.
“Okay,” I said. “House keys. Let’s do it.”
Thirty guys with thirty sets of house keys was a hell of an insurance liability, so at Alpha Tau we had the brothers sign their keys in with the chapter executive before going away for any extended period.
We kept the keys locked in the safe in my office.
It meant that a member of the chapter executive had to be the last to leave and the first to get back, but it saved us the headache of worrying about the house while we weren’t here.
Casey pulled a couple sets of keys out of his pocket. “Okay, I’ve taken James Two’s and Jasper’s, since they left this morning. I was gonna grab Briar’s as well, but I forgot. I’ll hand them in when I hand mine in.”
Connor took charge of the keys, checked the labels Casey had put on them, and opened his notebook to record that we had them.
Since almost everyone had left, it turned out the only keys left to come back were Briar’s, Marty’s, and the ones from the rest of the executive, which meant at least I wouldn’t have to spend my day chasing anyone up.
“I’m last to leave tomorrow, so make sure you all have your keys in by noon, okay?” I said.
Scout cleared his throat. “Actually, I’m last to leave.”
“Since when?” As far as I was aware, Scout was supposed to meet his folks tonight and fly out first thing tomorrow.
“Change of plans.” Scout examined the cuff of his blazer. He was wearing a disdainful expression, as though he’d found one of Squirrel’s hairs clinging to it, and his tone was bored.
But I’d been dating Scout for a while now, and one thing I knew was that his family didn’t change their plans. If the airport was on fire, Mrs. Talbot-Smith would just signal for more ice in her cocktail while they waited to board.
Scout glanced up at me, and beneath his normal cold stare I caught a flicker of something—uncertainty, maybe—and that was when I knew he was full of shit. But I also knew him well enough not to call him out in front of everyone, so I just said, “Okay.”
Meanwhile, Marty was pulling a series of frantic faces like a kid in class contorting himself in an attempt to get the teacher’s attention. When I looked at him, his eyes grew as big as Squirrel’s when he spotted steak, and he mouthed See! at me.
Yeah, I saw, and so would the entire room if Marty didn’t rein it in.
“Okay, so Scout will have one set of keys to the house, and the rest will be put in the safe,” I said.
“I’ll have the only other set, so if anyone needs anything from the house over the break, you’re shit out of luck.
” And then I relented, just in case there was an actual emergency.
“If anyone does need anything, call me and not Scout, because he’s not flying all the way back from Vienna to let someone in. ”
Scout’s expression tightened.
Yeah, there was definitely something going on.
We wrapped up the meeting, and Scout shot out of there like a scalded cat—well, he walked at a moderately brisk pace, which for Scout was the same thing.
I was about to follow him when Marty grabbed my sleeve. “Trey?”
The rest of the guys trailed out of the room.
“What?”
“Bro, there is something super up with Scout! You see it, right?”
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“So go and fix him!”
“Come on, Marty. You know how it is. Scout’s—” I hesitated. “Complicated. I can’t just come out and ask him what’s up.”
Marty snorted. “Not with that attitude.”
“I mean it, Marty.” Scout didn’t talk about his feelings.
Hell, he barely admitted to having any. Which was why we’d hooked up for an entire semester before he’d asked if I wanted to date—and why I’d waited for him to figure out he wanted more in the first place.
I’d been all in from the moment he’d flipped his comforter down in an invitation to join him in bed, but Scout had taken a while to get there.
The wait had been worth it.
Marty huffed out a sigh. “Why can’t he just be normal?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Careful, Marty. Don’t throw stones from inside that glass house of yours.”
“I don’t even know why you’d build a house out of glass,” Marty said. “People would be able to look in and see your junk when you were in the shower, so that saying makes no sense.”
“Obviously, you’d have curtains,” I said before wondering how I’d gotten sucked into the inherent Marty-ness of this conversation. “It’s a metaphor, Marty. Look, I’ll go and talk with Scout, but I’m just saying it’s not as straightforward as asking him, okay?”
Marty nodded, chewing his bottom lip with worry. “Yeah.”
I clapped him on the back. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Okay.” He fist-bumped me.
On my way upstairs, I was waylaid briefly by Knox, who wanted to check what date I’d be back.
We ended up chatting for a while, so by the time I made it back up to the third floor, I’d given Scout a head start of about twenty minutes.
Which it turned out was long enough for him to think I wasn’t coming straight up, so he’d started packing.
His open suitcase was lying on our bed, and he was placing his folded clothes neatly inside.